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Traffic moves past a Republican sign for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, and senate candidate Josh Mandel, on Montana Ave., Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, on the west side of Cincinnati. All three candidates lost in Tuesday's election. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

Where Did Some Pollsters Go Wrong?



Buffalo, NY (WBEN) As Americans rehash the presidential election, a number of pollsters and pundits were proven wrong in their projections. Where did they go wrong?

Barry Zeplowitz of Barry Zeplowitz and Associates, a local polling firm, says some experts did not buy into the notion the 2008 voting model would not match the one this year. "I think the danger becomes with pollsters who create models based on previous models, and believe or don't believe it will happen again as the basis for their surveys," believes Zeplowitz. "The pollsters who were wrong based the model that did not predict the turnout of minorities and particularly Hispanics in states that were affected."

Zeplowitz also thinks there was a danger that the automated calling did not pick up cell phones, which are used by many young voters. A polling group like Siena may have gotten it right because of live calls. "They used live callers like we do. All our data is based on having cell phones as part of the information pollsters should be calling, and third, they had a large enough polling group to stay within the margin of error," explains Zeplowitz.
He says Rasmussen oversampled Republicans, but the complaints from the Mitt Romney campaign were the public polls oversampled Democrats. But sometimes, the spin doctors can get in the way. "Sometimes, the pollsters inside the campaign tend to put the best spin on their results, and you can take any set of data and find information that will make your candidate winning possible," says Zeplowitz. He says the only difference between the Romney and Obama pollsters were how they were interpreting the data.

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Topics : Politics
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Locations : Buffalo
People : Mitt Romney, Zeplowitz
11/07/2012 5:53PM
Where Did Some Pollsters Go Wrong?
Please enter your comments below.
11/08/2012 7:10AM
The legitimate polling firms were right. Fancy that!
You people demonized Nate Silver (but in earlier times your intellectual forebears demonized the notion of a round earth) but his forecast was 100% accurate, simply by analysis of existing agenda-free polling outfits. Of course if you actually believed Rasmussen or "unskewed polling" (cough) you might as well keep believing Limbaugh or Tom Bauerle because they tell you the lies you want to hear also too!
11/08/2012 7:33AM
As Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove:
"Is this just math you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?"
11/08/2012 9:15AM
On turnout
Perhaps the right-wing pollsters like Rasmussen anticipated the GOP would have had better success trying to suppress the vote. Thankfully Americans had their voices heard despite those who would prefer a banana republic plutocracy.
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